Writer's Block: These are a few of my favorite things

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I never do these Writer's Block questions. Heaven knows, I don't have writer's block when it comes to LJ -- I have to work hard to not post multiple times a day. However, this is a question I'd like to answer.

My first impulse was to be flippant. "I love how stable it is, the lack of downtime, the outstanding customer support!". I got over that fast though.

I love LJ. I love how it lets me stay in contact with people. All the FFXI people who I would have long since no longer been able to talk to. Fandom people. PokeMUSH victims staff and players. Heck, I still have anime people on my friends list (forever ago!). Random people I've met through talk of cooking and diet, friends of friends, artists, writers, people I know RL...

My journal was created on August 15, 2002. I've written 4,811 entries. But the most important stat? 39,636 comments received, 39,803 comments posted. That's what I love about LJ -- the interactions. The conversations. Conversations about the most important things in life, conversations about the silliest things (who wants a cute kitten video!).

LiveJournal is a big part of my life. Even just the act of writing posts often helps me feel better (and if worse comes to worst and it's too sad/negative to post, there's the 'private' setting so no one will see it but me).

In the last few weeks, I've had an influx of IC (in character/fictional) journals onto my friends list, which is just another dimension of enjoyment.

I may be the biggest introvert on the planet in RL, but through LJ I can meet new people and interact with anyone in a safe, comfortable way. Thank you, all of you on my friends list and anyone else who happens to know of my journal, for making my online life all the better. Thank you to LiveJournal as well.

Mmmm food

See? I totally fail at posting only once a day, especially when I post early. But everyone likes reading about food, right? Mmmm.

When I cook, it's rare for it to come out good enough that I'm willing to eat it, let alone mmm mmmm good. Today I successfully cooked not once but twice!

It all started with these:

Pretzel crisps. I love pretzels (the big, soft kind), but when I saw these in Sprouts, I really, really wanted to try them. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) the carb count was really high. I could have half a serving (5 little 'chips') at a time. Thinking I wouldn't be able to stick to that, I passed them up. Then kicked myself for WEEKS after. (Not being permitted to have food is an issue from childhood. My father used to use food to control us... when he wasn't giving and taking away love and attention. This makes dieting oh so much fun.) Anyway, while shopping today, I gave in and got some. I figured I could use them to make a couple small 'sandwiches'. So I got sandwich meat and cheese as well.

The supermarket had munster cheese on sale, which I don't think I've ever eaten before. But hey, chance to try something new! It was okay to eat plain, though not great. (And not only did the pretzel crisp sandwiches not work out, the crisps themselves are pretty sucky. After all that stress and depression over not getting them, ha!) So I decided to make a grilled cheese sandwich. It's been ages since I last had one.

Best Sandwich Ever. It was so good that, even though I was full, I wanted to turn around and make another one right away. The cheese (which had been nearly melting at room temperature, was so melty and gooey and good! /Homer drool

I'm surprised dinner came out as well as it did. Tomorrow I'm making pork chops in the crock pot, so usually I wouldn't want pork today, but it was thawed so I wanted to use it up. I realized this at 5 PM. Since I wouldn't have long to marinade, I cut the pork into thin strips. Into a ziplock with my becoming-usual marinade: soy sauce, worcestershire, a heaping spoonful of garlic, and what little bit of honey I could squeeze out of the bear (I have no idea how old that honey is, but it really doesn't want to move). An hour in the fridge, then I cooked it in a pan. SO GOOD.

Both meals were better than anything I'd usually get eating out, which is a really nice change.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to make the pork in this recipe (not the potatoes alas, as good as they sound). I like everything that goes into the recipe (all, um, three things, pork being one of them), though I'm starting to worry how it'll taste together. Someone reposted this on LJ and I asked her how it came out, she said really good, so... hopefully.

And it's strange. While googling for a picture of the pretzel crisps, I found a blog post about them:

Anyway, I give these the Token Fat Girl seal of approval. At 110 calories per serving of 11 crips I find them to be a satisfying and delightful snack that I don't want to over eat.

It's interesting how carbs and calories don't always seem to match up. Yes, 110 calories for a serving of 11 of them is darned good, but that's 23 carbs. (A snack should be 15 carbs, a meal 30.)

In other news, since I've been so darned bored lately, I decided to start a game of FFX. Then I noticed my PS2 was no longer near my TV. I looked in all the boxes I have, I found a Nintendo 64, a Nintendo cube something or other, but no PS2. Blah. I have no idea how I would have hooked it up to the new TV anyway, but I would have like to have tried.

And in related news, since Monday is another vacation day for me and I'm so bored, I thought about leaving the house tomorrow (gasp!). I was thinking about going to the mall, though as I need nothing and don't really like shopping and hate crowds of people, that might be a silly plan. There's lots of interesting things to see there though, so... maybe.

And lastly, I have a movie (Princess Bride, nope I've never seen it before) and an anime series (gasp again!) to maybe watch this weekend. My friendsfriends list is busy with posts about some series called Tiger & Bunny, so I thought I'd check that out. Unfortunately I had to download the whole thing, so hopefully I'll like it.